


Into The Sea

by PenguinKiwis



Series: Penguin's Star Wars One-Shots [10]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble, One-Shot, Other, Planet Kamino (Star Wars), Swimming, Water
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:54:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29548233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenguinKiwis/pseuds/PenguinKiwis
Summary: A misstep sends Plo into the waters of Kamino
Series: Penguin's Star Wars One-Shots [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2153106
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	Into The Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of [this post from tumblr](https://luminioushope.tumblr.com/post/643397484850380800/i-feel-like-plo-is-a-really-really-good-swimmer)

One of the first things that Master Tyvokka had him learn was to hold his breath and keep increasing the length of how long he could do so.

It was a necessity, Plo Koon had both been told and had known at the time. It was an easy target, one that his opponents would gladly take advantage of if they were aiming to kill. Indeed, the mask had been ripped from his face more times than he could count— the first time he had been a padawan because of course it had been then, and he had almost died before his second year with Master Tyvokka.

Back then, he could hold his breath for six minutes straight, but he had been so startled at the hand tearing what kept him alive off of Dorin from his face that he had taken in too much oxygen in a panic.

Since then there had been a number of times and each time his response to stop his breathing had been quicker than the last. Closing his airways off and continuing to fight while his monstrous and grotesque true face terrified his enemies.

Plo Koon was old, though, and by now he could hold his breath for up to forty-seven standard minutes. And, admittedly, had also developed a slight resistance to Oxygen poisoning. It wasn’t anything special, oxygen still burned like all sith hells, all this resistance did was add a few more minutes of blinding agony to his suffocation.

( And it came from his own personal form of penance, he would tell Shaak Ti bitterly, somewhere between laughing and sobbing after the Malevolence, face buried in his hands and mask and goggles thrown to the side. She had shoved his mask onto his face not a moment after and hauled him to the Halls of Healing.)

Nonetheless, it hardly mattered how long one could hold their breath if they couldn’t exactly swim.

Ah, to be clear, it wasn’t that he _couldn’t_ swim. Plo would like that to be cleared up, thank you very much, but rather, it had been well over fifty years since he had _needed_ to swim— for a mission or otherwise.

So when an unfortunate misstep sent him into the oceans of Kamino, he had simply held his breath with a feeling of resignation before water flooded his mask.

(He would have to remember to switch his standard mask to his modified one the next time he arrived to drop off certain Order reports to Shaak Ti that _couldn’t_ be sent over a holo or comlink.)

Kamino’s waves were choppy, the never ending storms dangerous on the planet were a thing to be wary of for most, but he had seen worse— lived through worse— on Dorin. Dorin might not be a flooded planet, so the watery depths were a slight unknown to him, but being tossed and pulled in multiple directions because of the currents was more or less similar to how the wind pushed him back on Dorin.

Plo acted on instinct, body going limp against the current and allowing himself to be pulled whatever way the water wished. At the same time, he was being dragged down, robes heavy and with two quick swipes from his talons, he had torn free of the heavy cloth— the brown fabric drifting off to who knew where. 

And Kamino’s seas were dark enough for him to not bother to snatch his goggles back when they were torn from his face, no point in wasting energy to get them back when he could just as easily call them back to him when he was surfaced. The salt and oxygen _in_ the water stung, but there was little he could even do about that anyhow.

Despite the shedding of his outer robes, Plo would sink faster than a normal human, he knew. A Kel Dor’s skeleton was denser than the average Human’s, it had less bone marrow in it to counter the helium and other Dorin gasses he breathed in— or at least, that’s what he teasingly would tell anyone who asked.

He truly had no idea what the evolutionary reason was for the denser bones, but he digresses once again.

His boots hit the sandy floor of Kamino’s oceans and the current pulled and pushed against him, but he didn’t allow it to move him this time. He locked his muscles just a bit, anchoring his body with the force as he took in his surroundings. In truth, the locking of his muscles to keep himself steady was horribly uncomfortable, but it did keep him upright and assist with keeping him anchored as he gazed around. He hadn’t drifted _too_ far from Tipoca City, which was a blessing from the Spirits, but the current was far more strong than he would have preferred.

A stronger storm had been passing overhead when they landed then.

Plo did a mental check, extending his senses as he recalled the total time it took for him to reach the seabed.

He had forty-one minutes left.

So it wasn’t a pressing matter, but the water was quite _cold_ for his tastes as well.

Well, the best option was to head back up to the surface, after all. 

The less time he spent in the water, the more time he could spend drying his mask and filter. It was rather useless when crusted with saltwater, unfortunately. The problems of the standard mask, and once again, he reminded himself that he would have to switch to his modified one (which was really just collecting dust in his quarters at the moment) the next time he came to Kamino.

Plo lessened the hold on the force that kept him anchored and loosened his muscles before he kicked off the seabed. At first, he allowed the force and the currents to carry him before he kicked upwards once more.

In truth, he was more out of practice than he would like to admit. His muscles remembered how to swim— similar to piloting a speeder, one never did forget once the muscles had an action ingrained— but it was taking _far_ more effort than it had years ago.

It took him ten minutes to reach the surface, eyes squinting in the bright floodlights of Tipoca City’s landing docs.

Well, that certainly burned.

He reached out with the force, looking for that thread of his own signature buried among the sea life of Kamino’s ocean before grasping ahold of it and pulling. His goggles flew into his hand without a problem and he affixed them to his face before blinking the spots from his vision.

Thirty-one minutes left before his lungs forced him to take in poison either from making him take a gasp in or by making him pass out. Neither were exactly preferable.

Flashes of green and red made him look up and several meters above him stood the familiar forms of his fellow Masters. Kit Fisto, already half stripped from his robes, and Shaak Ti, looking more amused if anything as they gazed down to him.

“Good to see you are well, my friend!” Kit called over the rain as Plo slowly swam closer to the landing dock the two were on. It would certainly be a high jump, and using the force to propel him from where he was treading water would certainly be more difficult than if he had been on land, but the Kaminoans didn’t install ladders. If you fell into the ocean, then you fell into the ocean.

 ** _“’Well’ is a relative term,”_** he sighed back, though stuck firmly to his telepathic skills. No point in killing himself faster by speaking.

“Do you require assistance in getting out, Master Koon?” Shaak Ti asked, gently wiping the rain from her face and he waved her off before calling the force to him again.

It was hardly as graceful as Kit or any of the other more aquatically inclined sentients among the Order, but he managed to land with his dignity atop the landing dock.

“Did your mask crack, my friend?” Kit asked as he pulled his own, rain-soaked robes back on, Plo made a dismissive hand gesture, feeling the worry from the younger master in the Force.

 ** _“No, though salt water tends to clog the filters, rendering them quite useless. I tend to avoid sea-side missions, as you know,”_** he told the Nautolan as the three of them crossed the landing dock and into the Hangar of the City. **_“Hmph. The next time I return to Kamino, remind me to switch masks.”_**

“I make no promises, my friend, but it’s lucky that you could swim,” Shaak Ti murmured, wiping water from her face again once they were out of the rain. Plo clicked in amusement.

 ** _“Please tell me that neither of you thought that I had_ drowned _down there?”_** he asked and both the Togruta and Nautolan looked a bit sheepish. Plo shook his head, projecting his amusement out into the force.

**_“My friends I might have not been seen anywhere near large bodies of water for well over fifty years, but I can assure you I am more than capable of swimming.”_ **

Kit shrugged a bit, flicking water from his tresses as he hummed.

“In all fairness, it did take you a while to resurface, I was about to jump in to look for your body when you showed back up,” he pointed out and Plo made a noise akin to snorting in their minds.

 ** _“Master Fisto, I would be a very poor Kel Dor if I could not hold my breath for more than ten minutes,”_** he pointed out. **_“Holding my breath against oxygen or against water makes no difference to me…”_** he paused, tilting his head a bit. **_“Though admittedly, I do only have about half an hour before I either pass out or my body forces me to take in a breath.”_**

“Uh yeah, I have no idea where to even start on treating a Kel Dor,” the younger Master admitted, “So let’s not do that.”

Shaak just laughed softly.

“You mustn’t worry then,” she told them both, smiling a bit. “Master Fisto handed off the reports that I need to go through before the next meeting, while you were taking your swim, Master Koon.”

Plo rolled his eyes behind his goggles but chuckled a bit. **_“Yes, it seems our normal roles were reversed,”_** he mused.

She nodded, “So it seems,” she agreed before she made a dismissive gesture. “In other words, as good as it would be to catch up, it would be quite preferable if we did so on less time constraints?”

 ** _“Certainly,”_** Plo agreed and Kit shook his head.

“And I’d _personally_ like to get off such a dreary planet,” he admitted. “Lots of water, but no sun.”

 ** _“Are you a plant, now, Master Fisto?”_** Plo inquired with a raised brow and both his fellow Masters laughed.

But nonetheless, Shaak Ti had a point. Kamino would not have what Plo needed to clean and dry his mask in time, even with all the necessary tools to do so aboard the transport ship that had brought them. The Kaminoans and Plo didn’t get along very well, for various reasons that started and ended at various forms of dissection. So even if Plo set up what he needed in Tipoca, it would still be quite the trial.

He glanced to Kit, who shrugged and nodded before turning to Shaak Ti.

“If that’s the case, then, Master Ti,” he started. “Master Koon and I will be returning to Coruscant.”

The Togruta simply smiled a bit at that, nodding and bowing to him. “Thank you again, Masters Fisto and Koon, for bringing the files over.”

 ** _“Think nothing of it, my friend,”_** Plo told her, smiling behind his mask, though he mentally calculated the time he had left.

Twenty-two minutes. More than enough time, though. 

Shaak waved them off as they headed back to the ship they had arrived on. Commander Monnk and Captain Craze from Kit’s Battalion had been the ones to accompany them over to Kamino, and Commander Monnk nodded to them as they approached, signaling to Captain Craze to lower the entrance ramp.

“So how exactly did you end up in the ocean while Master Ti and I were talking?” Kit asked as they climbed aboard, Commander Monnk behind them. Plo huffed a bit.

**_“Believe it or not, I slipped.”_ **

Kit whistled. “Just like that?”

He nodded. **_“As embarrassing as it is, yes,”_** he sighed.

“I guess even the best of us can become clumsy in the worst of times,” the Nautolan mused and Plo chuckled, but moved towards the cabins.

 ** _“If you excuse me, Master Fisto,”_** he said, tapping the side of his mask. **_“Fifteen minutes.”_**

Kit nodded. “I’ll leave you to it, Master Koon,” he said before he and Monnk broke away, heading towards the cockpit where Craze was.

Plo smiled from under his mask again, waving his hand and opening the door to one of the transport ship’s cabins. It wasn’t his quarters aboard the _Courageous_ , but it would do. With another flick of his wrist, the environment field flickered to life, the gasses from Dorin spilling into the cabin and he reached up, removing his mask.

He let out his held breath, feeling the beating of his heart speed up as he took in another before regulating.

Then he got to work, summoning the necessary tools to him with another pull from the force. Master Tyvokka would have scolded him for such a flippant use of the Force, but things could be overlooked for now, Plo decided as he first stripped out of his soaked robes, then cleaned his hands.

He pulled his spare set of robes on, hanging the soaked ones up to dry before he settled down to clean his mask.

Hm… perhaps he should ask Kit for some assistance on brushing up on his swimming skills.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact, the world record for a human holding their breath is 22 minutes and 22 seconds as of 2012.
> 
> Also no PloKit, but Kit’s there. They’re friends. Pre Slash maybe, idk take it how you will.
> 
> I personally headcanon that Kel Dor in the temple are trained to hold their breath for as long as they can so that they don’t die before they can get their masks back or back in an environment that they can breathe in. I don’t know Kel Dor lung capacity, so I just chose a random number, but I mean feel free to correct me.
> 
> Also yes, I know, the goggles protect the eyes from oxygen. But it seems that a number of other writers decided that it also protects them from light? I’m just going off of this. I have no idea what I’m doing. Dont ask why salt water clogs the filters i needed a plot filler :’)


End file.
